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Seize the opportunities that retirement provides!

Robert Ashton has become aware that his mature years are beckoning, and resolves to make the most of that potentially fruitful era of his life.

An official looking brown envelope landed on my doormat the other day. The letter inside carried the heading: ‘Get your State Pension’. Of course I already knew that I would soon be 66 years old and so the letter came as no surprise. But it was still a shock to be reminded of the fact that I will soon be what I grew up describing as an old age pensioner.
 
Unhelpfully, beneath the headline was the offer of a copy of the letter in Braille or large print. That reinforced the feeling that old age really was knocking loudly on my door. Inevitably this set me thinking about death, and the fact that none of my recent ancestors have lived to see their 90th birthday. I would be foolish to make many plans for the year 2045.
 
Traditional Christianity seeks to reassure us that we will continue to exist in some form after our death. But I prefer to think that I will be as aware of the years after my death, as I was of the years before I was born. We have no problem recognising that our lives begin, but many seem to wrestle with the notion that one day life will end.
 
As both a Quaker and an author, reflecting on my mortality merely prompts me to try even harder to have a positive impact on the world around me. Infirmity will inevitably precede my death, and so I have perhaps 15 years to write the books that will be helping others make sense of the world when I am no longer here.
 
Retirement, if that is the right word, is a time of opportunity and not to be wasted. It brings greater freedom than I enjoyed as a child. I need to spend it like a child, exploring, experiencing and in my case writing the books for which I might just be remembered.

 
Image above is by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.com


Robert Ashton 640CF


Robert Ashton is an author, publisher, social entrepreneur and Quaker. He has recently published a book exploring the subject of homelessness, called Any Spare Change?: One man's quest to understand rough sleeping.

Visit www.robertashton.co.uk


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